Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2016.0834

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences

Volume

283

Issue

1832

Pages

20160834 (10 pp.)

Abstract

Modelling the spatial spread of vector-borne zoonotic pathogens maintained in enzootic transmission cycles remains a major challenge. The best available spatio-temporal data on pathogen spread often take the form of human disease surveillance data. By applying a classic ecological approach-occupancy modelling-to an epidemiological question of disease spread, we used surveillance data to examine the latent ecological invasion of tick-borne pathogens. Over the last half-century, previously undescribed tick-borne pathogens including the agents of Lyme disease and human babesiosis have rapidly spread across the northeast United States. Despite their epidemiological importance, the mechanisms of tick-borne pathogen invasion and drivers underlying the distinct invasion trajectories of the co-vectored pathogens remain unresolved. Our approach allowed us to estimate the unobserved ecological processes underlying pathogen spread while accounting for imperfect detection of human cases. Our model predicts that tick-borne diseases spread in a diffusion-like manner with occasional long-distance dispersal and that babesiosis spread exhibits strong dependence on Lyme disease.

Rights

Web of Science: "Free full-text from publisher."

Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

http://royalsocietypublishing.org/licence

Original Publication Citation

Walter, K. S., Pepin, K. M., Webb, C. T., Gaff, H. D., Krause, P. J., Pitzer, V. E., & Diuk-Wasser, M. A. (2016). Invasion of two tick-borne diseases across New England: Harnessing human surveillance data to capture underlying ecological invasion processes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 283(1832), 20160834. doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.0834

ORCID

0000-0002-4034-2684 (Gaff)

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